A Thermodynamic Cavitation Model for Cavitating Flow Simulation in a Wide Range of Water Temperatures

Abstract

A thermodynamic cavitation model is developed to simulate the cavitating water flow in a wide temperature range. The thermal effect on bubble growth during cavitation is introduced in the developed model by considering both pressure difference and heat transfer between the vapor and liquid phase. The cavitating turbulent flow over a NACA0015 hydrofoil has been simulated at various temperatures from room temperature to 150°C by using the present cavitation model, which has been validated by the experimental data. It is seen that the thermodynamic effects of cavitation, vapor depression and temperature depression are much more predominant in high temperature water compared with those in room temperature water. These results indicate that the proposed thermodynamic cavitation model is reasonably applicable to the cavitating water flow in a wide temperature range.